SK Geo Centric, Loop to set up plastic recycling plant in Korea

SK Geo Centric Co., a petrochemical unit within South Korean conglomerate SK Group, said on Wednesday it will set up a joint venture with a Nasdaq-listed firm to create a cluster for plastic recycling.

The Seoul-based firm and Canadian company Loop Industries Inc. are slated to establish a 51:49 JV to set up recycling facilities in Ulsan, a city on the southeast coast of Korea, by 2025.

By using Loop’s depolymerization technologies, the plant will produce 70,000 tons of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) resin for packaging and polyester fiber applications per year.

The two companies also plan to build three additional manufacturing facilities throughout Asia by 2030, according to SK Geo Centric. As a global manufacturing base, Asia is where most fabric made of polyester is produced, incinerated or landfilled.

Loop’s technology can depolymerize waste PET plastic and polyester fiber, including textiles, plastic bottles, packaging and ocean plastics that have been degraded by the sun and salt, to their base building blocks called monomers.

The monomers are filtered, purified and polymerized to create high-quality PET resin suitable for use in food-grade packaging and polyester fiber.

SK Geo Centric and Loop have been in a strategic partnership for two years to step up their green economy technologies. Formerly SK Global Chemical, the Seoul-based firm acquired a 10% stake in Loop for $56.5 million in July 2021.

Additionally, the two companies and French utility company Suez will jointly set up a factory at the Chemesis industrial platform in Saint-Avoid, France to supply 100% recycled PET resin. Injecting a total of €450 million ($496 million), they will break ground on the plant in 2025 and construction will be completed by end-2027.

Write to Hyung-Kyu Kim at khk@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.